Initially cooperation activities were carried out through the NOVABA programme for co-operation between the Nordic (NOVA) and the Baltic agricultural universities (BOVA) which was formally established in December 1995 in Kaunas, Lithuania. As a consequence, the NOVABA co-operation scheme was approved and in the year 1996 a Letter of Intent for further collaboration was signed in Tartu, Estonia. The primary activity of NOVABA programme was organisation of short MSc courses at the BOVA universities in 1996-2000. BOVA has also promoted establishment of professional contacts between academic staff of its universities.

In October 1999 the Rectors of BOVA and NOVA met again to review the progress of the cooperation project and sign yet another agreement.

NOVABA yielded good results, as confirmed by positive evaluations by participating students and teachers as well as an external expert. One of the greatest values lies in the creation of a strong platform for the future cooperation in the form of established personal professional networks. However, the major deficiency in NOVABA activity was complete dependence on the external financing, namely by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Little effort was made to find other sources of financing and NOVABA faced a sharp decline in its activities in 2001 when the support by the Nordic Council of Ministers ceased.

Responsible representatives of NOVA-BOVA recognised the need for new agreement with strengthened institutional capacities on the BOVA side. For this purpose, the NOVA side succeeded to get a grant from the K&A Wallenberg foundation for the project "Development of Nordic-Baltic academic collaboration in Forestry, Veterinary and Agriculture (NOVA-BOVA)".  The grant of SEK 2.5 million was used until the end of 2004. The BOVA secretariat with one full time position was established in June 2002. Also, three 0.25 coordinator positions and one contact person are established at BOVA member institutions. The main objective of the project was to build up the capacities during 2002-2004. Further, the success of the project should have been proved by expanding number of cooperation activities.

Starting from 2005 BOVA is defined as a persistent network having well developed and functioning administrative structures and clearly defined objectives, tasks and activities and supported by its own internal funding. The first BOVA Strategy were developed during 2005 and approved in the beginning of 2006 by the BOVA Rectors’ Board for the period 2006-2009.

Nowadays BOVA continues its operation offering activities for students, PhD students and teaching staff based on both internal and external funds. The initiation and realisation of joint project is became essential task for further development.

NOVA UN over all these years is the major partner in all activities and projects however BOVA is open for the development of cooperation with other networks and organisations.